


Little Bit Of A Tight Chest

by chasing_the_sterek



Series: Under And Over [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Asthma, Gen, Peter has asthma, Peter's Helmet, anyway, hahaha, my name is drax drax the destroyer, those tags together remind me of the bond james bond thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter has asthma, but he hides it beneath his mask and its built-in inhaler.</p><p>However, a couple of minor (minor, ha) malfunctions cause the rest of the guardians to discover his secret.</p><p>Is it a secret?</p><p>It wasn't meant to be one, but he's not told anyone in so long it might as well be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Bit Of A Tight Chest

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a 5+1 series. Click on the words _Under And Over_ to have a look at the rest of them, when they come XD
> 
> Please don't yell at me for any mistakes. Break them to me gently. . .

It starts with the usual symptoms. Peter's back-to-back with Rocket (well, Rocket's on his shoulders, but he's facing the other way so it totally counts), both of them opening fire on the oncoming waves of enemies. Peter's just set his element blaster to water, 'cause this wave of suckers are made of _fire,_ when suddenly he becomes short of breath and his chest starts to get tight.  
__  
Asthma attack.  
  
He used to be scared of these - used to think that he wasn't going to ever breathe again, that he was going to die there, then, that at any moment he was going to turn blue and die alone - and yeah, he's still fucking terrified, but he can cool himself down from one much quicker than he used to. When Peter had had his first attack in space, the whole crew had gone mental - even Yondu was running around panicking like a fucking headless chicken; little Peter laughed so hard once he'd calmed down (he'd been unable to get to the inhaler in his backpack, amd none of the crew had understood his frantic signalling for it, so he'd had to just sit it out) the Ravagers thought he was having another one.

After a few months of no incidents, he'd had another; again, that time he hadn't had his inhaler on him. It had been in his backpack, which'd been back on the ship, which had been too far away and frankly impossible to get to considering that he, Yondu, and Kraglin had all been hiding in an alleyway after running from some bounty hunters for ten minutes straight (which, really, would have been enough to set off anybody's asthma).

That one had been better than the first one, which Peter had appreciated, and lasted a shorter amount of time, which he had also appreciated.

Yondu and Kraglin, needless to say, had not seen the positive side, and shouted at him for being weak. Peter saw the worry in their faces and remembered (for the thousandth time) that Yondu and Kraglin were the kind of people who shouted at you to cover up how worried they were.

He showed them his inhaler and taught them how to use it so it stopped his attack. They shouted at him some more for not carrying it at all times before Yondu promptly stole it for unknown (at the time, anyway) reasons. It came back a couple of weeks later in the form of what is now his Star-Lord helmet. Yondu had built it for him, and when the Centaurion had given it to him he'd attached it to his translator chip.

When Peter takes the helmet off he's taking off his translator chip too. While he's wearing it over his face, the helmet somehow converts the air he breathes into a mild, constant dose of the medicine the inhaler used to hold (Peter doesn't pretend to know what it was called. Yondu probably does, though), so it serves as an identity-shielder (not that he has much of a secret identity), a bit of protection for his face, and an inhaler.

Peter has to give Yondu credit where it's due - the helmet is fucking awesome.

He flips it on now, turning a little knob on one side to up the dose a bit because the asthma attack's already out of the range that the usual level of medicine can deal with.

Nothing happens.

Peter frowns inside the mask. Now that he thinks about it, he can't taste the vague sweetness/tanginess that the air adopts when it contains the medicine, and the only reason he wouldn't be able to is because. . .

He feels his chest tighten even more. _No, no, why can't it run out when I'm **not** fighting for my life?_

His eyes slip closed, and as Peter tries to forcefully calm himself down he hopes the hardest he thinks he's ever hoped before that Rocket senses his lapse in attention and covers for the both of them.

His hopes pay off (for once).

"Quill, what are you _doing?"_ Rocket bellows, somehow getting heard above the screams of their dying enemies and the battle cries of Groot and Drax. "Quit messing around and _help,_ damn you!"

"Can't." Peter manages to choke out. He hopes (lot of hoping going on at the moment, he notes absently) that his desperation for Rocket to understand gets across through his voice. "Gimme. . . gimme a minute."

"We don't _have_ a minute!" Rocket yells, but he starts shooting over a full circle and doesn't say anything more, so Peter guesses that's his way of saying _get on with it, loser._

Peter takes in a massive gulp of air and claws off his helmet when it's not enough. It would probably help if Rocket got off of his back, but the raccoon's using him as a platform and it'd disturb his fighting if Peter makes him go over to Groot (who's using wilder, longer range attacks now he's not having to make sure Rocket's secure on his shoulders) just because of a silly little Terran weakness like _asthma._

But he still can't breathe, and taking the helmet off isn't helping in the slightest, and neither is taking in even bugger gulps of air.

There's a stuttering pause in Rocket's shooting, and a confused "Quill. . . ?"

"M'fine," Peter coughs, and yeah, he's wasting precious air speaking but Rocket needs to understand that this isn't something he needs to worry about, and he's very unlikely to die from this one anyway, as bad as it is. "Jus'. . . jus' fight, k?"

"No, Pete," Rocket says, and that is definitely concern in his voice, which means that Peter failed at his mission of _do not distract Rocket._ "You're not fine."

Peter opens his mouth to protest, but he's interrupted by his lungs trying to rip themselves out of his chest. Next thing he knows, Rocket's shouting for the rest of the team, and then they're suddenly all around, one furry face staring down at him in concern (when did he fall over?) and three backs standing in a loose but impenetrable triangle around them.

"Pete?" Rocket asks carefully. One fuzzy paw reaches up and touches his forehead. The raccoon frowns when he finds no fever. "You okay? Wait, no, that's a stupid thing to ask. You'll just deflect."

Peter wants to protest, because that is _rude_ (even if it's completely true), but he's interrupted by his dumb lungs again.

He's pretty sure he hasn't had one this bad since he was a teenager.

"What's wrong with ya? An' don't say nothin'."

Peter clocks Gamora shooting him a concerned glance as she slices the fire people in half, then Drax doing something similar a few moments later, then Groot. Gamora says something that he doesn't understand - making him remember that his translator is currently MIA - in a language he hasn't learnt yet. Peter realises that Rocket's watching him with dark, beady eyes the whole time, no doubt assessing what he can and can't do and from there trying to figure out what's wrong with him.

"Asthma attack." Peter hisses, face involuntarily contracting with pain as his lungs merrily tear chunks out of each other and his chest squeezes him cheerfully.

Rocket looks blank. "A what attack?" He asks, then apologises when he notices that Peter winces at the prospect of speaking.

"Can't breathe properly." Peter gasps. His body's tearing itself apart, he's _dying dying dying -_

No. He's done this before, beaten these attacks before. Peter's dealt with worse than this, although this one does rate pretty high on the _how-much-did-that-asthma-attack-suck?_ list, and this little shit is gonna have to suck it up that he's gonna sucker-punch it.

"Are you gonna die? Izzit lethal?" Rocket panics.

Not exactly the best or most helpful question in the universe, but hey. Peter can't blame him. It's a question that he himself would ask if he were in Rocket's position, so. . .

"Should be. . . should be over soon." The Terran somehow heaves.

Rocket relaxes a little at the news. "Oh, good, 'cause there's no way yer gettin' outta explainin' this one."

Peter huffs a laugh and instantly regrets it.  
**  
**@#£% &**&%£#@  
  
It takes a good ten minutes for his chest to stop imploding and his lungs to stop throwing themselves around.

Once he's sure the attack's completely over, Peter sits up slowly (ignoring the protesting noises from the team) and looks around. The enemies are all dead, lying haphazardly around the area and generally just cluttering up the space. A sudden burst of electricity and a small explosion of sparks catch his eye and he turns his head to see his helmet - and, by extension, his translator - lying on the ground a few feet away from where he'd clawed it off earlier.

Fucking _hell,_ Peter's glad he learnt to speak Kree, because by some miraculous stroke of luck that's what Rocket speaks.

There's one downside; only Rocket speaks it. Gamora speaks what Rocket tells him is Zehoberan - the language of the planet Zehoberi, the closest thing Gamora has to a home planet - and Drax speaks Thyranoxan, 'cause he's from Thyranox. Peter makes a mental note to learn them both later. Groot speaks Kree, too, but he still just says _I am Groot,_ so it's about as useful as if they didn't speak the same thing at all.

"Hey, welcome back, man," Rocket says from his side. There's a note of caution in his voice, like he doesn't want to upset Peter by accident. It's a far cry from his usual tone, and it reminds the Terran of how his mom used to speak when she didn't want to spook a horse. "You gonna tell me what happened?"

"You're probably gonna make me if I say no," he replies, tipping his head backwards until it's resting against Groot's back. "So yeah.

"What I had just now was an asthma attack. They're a Terran thing - the closest thing you have to them is a panic attack, I think. There's medicine they give you, on Terra, that stops the attacks as soon as you take a couple of puffs of it -"

"Puffs?" Rocket says, and Peter realises that he's repeating what Gamora's saying in Zehoberan in Kree. Gamora's face gets her confusion across well enough.

"The medicine's in air form." Peter explains. "Easier to take that way, I guess. Anyways, the things that hold the medicine are called inhalers. I only had one of those on me, all those years ago when Yondu scooped me up.

"I had two asthma attacks before he made me my helmet; I guess I freaked him out so much he didn't want to go through it again. Whatever compelled him to do it, I'm fucking grateful, because that little shit over there has saved my life many times."

"How? It is just a helmet - it does not have any weapons or any ways with which to save your life that I can see." Rocket translates for Drax.

"Key phrase right there, Mr Destroyer," Peter hums, _"that you can see._ Yondu made it so that it converts the air I suck in into air that contains a set dose of the medicine. I control the dose via this little knob on the side, here" - he twiddles it - "so while I usually keep it set at giving me just enough medicine to keep an attack at bay - so if I'm running or fighting, which are both triggers, I might put my helmet on and take the medicine. It'll prevent an attack in case I would have had one - but I can up the strength of the dose if I need to."

There's a beat of silence.

Then Drax and Gamora start speaking at the same time, guttural Thyranoxan and melodic Zehoberan, and Rocket has to make them shut up before he can even find a place to start translating.

Peter doesn't even wait for Rocket to open his mouth before he's saying, "Pass me my translator, Rock, c'mon."

"Pete, hate to break it to ya, but that thing is wrecked. You can't -"

"Just gimme. I can try, at least, right? Don't be so pessimistic."

Rocket rolls his eyes. He grumbles and moans and complains about it the whole time, but he still goes and he still picks up Peter's translator and he still brings it over to where Peter's sitting, leaning against Groot for support that's nice to have but not really necessary.

Peter turns it over in his hands a couple of times. There's a red-orange-orange-gold resistor that's in two halves, the monostable integrated circuit has come out of the socket slightly, and the download plugin access point looks like it's jammed on the inside. There are a lot of cracks in things, actually, and at one point it's short-circuited.

For an amateur, it's impossible to fix.

So it's fucking lucky Peter Quill is not an amateur, isn't it?

"Quill -"

"Someone get me a paperclip," he demands, "and a bit of Ulgsot glue."

He's handed the items - the Ulgsot even being given to him in a small squeezy tube with an extra-thin nozzle so he can get to the little bits - and he immediately reshapes the paperclip so it looks vaguely like a screwdriver. The Ulgsot glue is used to stick the two halves of the red-orange-orange-gold resistor together (the glue conducts electricity and acts more like solder that doesn't require heat), and he just uses a finger to click the integrated circuit back into position. The paperclip is wiggled around in the hole of the download plugin access point until there's another _click_ as it resets. Peter then proceeds to glue all of the cracks and scrape away at the buildup that's caused the short circuit. The whole thing takes him about ten minutes, not including the amount of time it takes for the glue to dry, which just takes another one.

Peter slips it on with a sigh of relief at the familiar weight's return and checks that his helmet works - flicking the knob up and down to make sure he has access to the whole range of medicine doses if he ever needs it - before blinking at the team expectantly, waiting for the inevitable onslaught.

Gamora wastes no time. "What were you _thinking?_ Asthma sounds like a big thing, Peter, especially if it affects you during battle or escaping like you said!"

"It's fine," Peter mumbles. "I'm fine. It's just a stupid Terran thing, don't worry about it."

There's an unholy screech from Rocket. Peter flinches, eyes wide. The shouting from Gamora and the silent disapproval from Drax he expected, but Rocket screaming? Nu-uh.  
_  
"Don't worry about it!?"_ The raccoon screams hysterically. "I thought you _died,_ Quill! I thought you just crumpled up and _died._ Then I realised you were choking but you were all -" the furriest guardian puts on a deeper voice in a purposefully bad impersonation of Peter " - _'oh, no, it's fine, just casually suffocating over here, by the way, did you know that crabs urinate out of their eyes?'_ and I still thought you were _going to die_ but you were just so _blasé_ about it and I want to _kill_ you for scaring me but I also want to _hug the fuck out of you_ because you're _not fucking dead,_ holy _shit -"_

"Hey, Ranger Rick, cool it." Peter calls over the frantic yelling. _"I'm not dead._ Not dead, capiche? I am very much alive, and I intend to stay that way for as long as possible."

"But -"

"I was only dismissive about it because this has been a thing I've been dealing with since forever. I was born with it, and that, while not exactly my best, was not my worst asthma attack. I'm used to this, and I always forget how scary people seem to find it at first."

Rocket locks eyes with Peter. "Tell us next time, yeah?"

The rest of the team have moved on to stacking the now-extinguished bodies into neat stacks, but they're obviously listening.

Peter nods. "Yeah. I will."

Rocket hums something that sounds suspiciously like _I'm Not In Love_ by 10cc as he starts on his own pile.

"And, Rocket?" Peter calls.

"What is it now, Star-Butt?"

"Sorry."

Rocket's whole form softens. "S'okay," Peter hears him say quietly. "S'okay."

 

 

 

BONUS

 

"Crabs pee out of their eyes?"

"Shut up, idiot."

**Author's Note:**

> Was that okay? I hope your eyes didn't shrivel up as you read it. It _is_ pretty awful. I wrote half of this in the wee hours of the morning, though, so. . .
> 
> I'M SORRY PETER. I'M SO SORRY.
> 
>  
> 
> By the way, [this is my tumblr if you want it.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/total-master-of-geekiness)


End file.
